Friday, July 1, 2011

[Interview]M&D on their music, breaking the idol image, and future goals

M&D on their music, breaking the idol image, and future goals

Since forming their own project group, M&D, Super Junior’s Heechul and The Trax’s Jungmo sat down for their first interview as a duo with Sports World at a restaurant in Chungdam-dong.
Heechul was determined to “reveal everything inside of him” through the interview to emphasize the difference between M&D’s Heechul and Super Junior’s Heechul, but Jungmo replied that that didn’t apply to him. The two are already known for their deep friendship, as Heechul is described to be the movement while Jungmo is the tool that holds his center. Even representatives revealed that they’re at ease when they know Heechul is with Jungmo.
Plus and minus, hot and cold, although they’re of contrasting personalities, they manage to balance together as one, which definitely has fans anticipating their future music releases.
Check out the interview below!
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Q. “How did you come to create M&D?”Jungmo: “We were talking about male duos on a radio program and I suddenly thought of the idea of forming a duo with Heechul hyung.Joo Young Hoon gave us a lot of advice and even said he’d write a song for us, which I refused. I knew that I wanted to do this on my own with Heechul hyung.”Heechul: “We wrote up a plan sheet and submitted it to the company and Lee Soo Man said that it’d be fun. We didn’t think everything would happen so fast though. Our plan was to originally just release a digital song but things got to the point where we were even shooting a music video for it. The production costs amounted to $300 USD. We shot it at our company’s karaoke room and used close juniors like Hongki and Junhyung as free cameos. After six minutes of filming, we threw an after party for six hours.”

Q. “Do you have a specific goal with M&D?”Heechul: “I wanted to get rid of the idol feel. I’ve always mentioned wanting to break away from the idol image, but Super Junior is the best idol group in the world. I want to use M&D to do everything I wanted to pursue. This time, I got a bit greedy with singing and tried to pursue music different from Super Junior’s. But I’ll make sure to never let this get in the way of our team.”Jungmo: “I was never an idol to begin with, but I do have a strong image of being the guitarist of Trax. Through M&D, I hope to show that I can perform music other than rock. I like club music and I also like trot music.”
Q. “There were a lot of comparisons to UV being made. Some also thought you guys looked like you were joking around.”Heechul: “Seyoon hyung was our motif because he’s similar to me in a lot of ways. We’ll be working with UV for Mnet’s ‘20’s Choice‘ on July 7th. That will be M&D’s first stage, but it could also be our last. We’re preparing something surprising.”Jungmo: “I’ve never once performed music as a joke.”Heechul: “M&D is not a temporary project. There are a lot of things I want to do through this group, and it’s something that will be ongoing into the future. They say that our digital ranking is dropping, and we can’t possibly continue if we fail like this since it’ll be embarrassing. Please help us out.”

Q. “What has changed since starting M&D?”Heechul: “My agency gives me a lot of freedom but I always felt like I was trapped. I want to take this opportunity to write songs on my own and even date. I can’t write lyrics for sad ballads because I need to experience love for that. Even if I date, I won’t be revealing it to the public for her. There’s nothing I can do about it if we get caught, though…”Jungmo: “I’ve always lived positively but always under the stress of having to compose songs. After writing songs that I wanted to make through M&D, I was able to shed a lot of useless thoughts. It’s great.”
Q. “Any closing words?”Heechul: “I’m always apologetic to our fans. My personality is like that of a tree frog so I haven’t been able to provide them with proper fan service. Thank you for always believing in me and liking me anyway.”Jungmo: “The public seems to believe that the company is always behind SM’s music, but I want to show that it’s not like that at all. There are no taboos with us!”
Source + Photos: Sports World via Naver